Water Use in a Heavily Urbanized Delta

YAO Mingtian YAO Use in the Pearl River Basin, China River Use in the Pearl URBANIZED DELTA URBANIZED Scenario and Adaption Options for Sectorial Water Water Adaption Options for Sectorial Scenario and WATER USE IN A HEAVILY A HEAVILY USE IN WATER WATER USE IN A HEAVILY URBANIZED DELTA: Scenarios and adaptation options for sectorial water use in the Pearl River Basin, China YAO M. WATER USE IN A HEAVILY URBANIZED DELTA Scenarios and Adaptation Options for Sectorial Water Use in The Pearl River Basin, China YAO Mingtian Thesis committee Promotor Prof. Dr P. Kabat Professor of Earth System Science Wageningen University & Research Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Laxenburg, Austria Co-promotors Dr S.E. Werners Assistant professor, Water Systems and Global Change Group & team Climate Change Wageningen University & Research Dr R.W.A. Hutjes Associate professor, Water Systems and Global Change group & team Climate Change Wageningen University & Research Prof. Dr Huang Heqing Professor of Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Other members Prof. Dr P.J.G.J. (Petra) Hellegers; Wageningen University & Research Prof. Dr J.W. (Jim) Hall; University of Oxford, UK Prof. Dr A.Y. (Arjen) Hoekstra; University of Twente, Enschede Prof. Dr L. (Laixiang) Sun, University of Maryland, USA This research was conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School for Socio- Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE) WATER USE IN A HEAVILY URBANIZED DELTA Scenarios and Adaptation Options for Sectorial Water Use in The Pearl River Basin, China YAO Mingtian Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor at Wageningen University by the authority of the Rector Magnificus, Prof. Dr A.P.J. Mol, in the presence of the Thesis Committee appointed by the Academic Board to be defended in public on Wednesday 20 December 2017 at 11 a.m. in the Aula. III YAO Mingtian Water use in a heavily urbanized delta Scenarios and Adaptation Options for Sectorial Water Use in The Pearl River Basin, China, 168 pages. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands (2017) With references, with summary in English ISBN: 978-94-6343-823-0 DOI: 10.18174/426923 Abstract Water use is increasing globally to meet the growing demand for food and industrial products, and the rising living standard. Water scarcity has been reported in many regions, questioning the long-term sustainability of water use. The objective of this thesis is to better understand sectorial water use development in an urbanizing river delta, and to explore the potential of water use management as an adaptation option to reduce water shortage. The Pearl River Basin in Southern China is taken as study area. The upstream part of the basin is one of the poorer regions of China, whereas the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is the world’s largest urban region in both population and area. This study presents the first consistent analysis of sectorial water use in the PRD. Results show that during the period of 2000-2010, the PRD managed to stabilize its annual total water use. Nevertheless, severe salt intrusion induced water shortages occur. Assessment of water use at a monthly resolution shows that water use contributes to salt intrusion by further reducing the already low dry season river discharge. To investigate the possible future development of water use, this study proposed a method to derive region specific water use scenarios from a global assessment of water use. Scenarios based on regionalised assumptions project substantially lower water use than those based on national assumptions. Nevertheless, hydrological challenges remain for the PRD. The total water use of the PRD may still increase by up to 54% in 2030 in the regionalized scenarios. Also, water use in the upstream regions increases with socio-economic development. To address water shortage, four extreme water allocation strategies were analysed against water use and water availability scenarios under climate change. None of these strategies proved to be sufficient to fully avoid water scarcity in the Pearl River Basin. This study obtains a better understanding of the sectorial water use development and its impact on salt intrusion induced water shortage in a heavily urbanized river delta. The water use framework and methods used to derive regional water use scenarios are transferable to other regions, provided that data is available. Water use scenarios are crucial to sustainably manage water resources in a changing world. Content Abstract Chapter 1 3 1.1 Fresh water resources 3 1.2 Anthropogenic water use 3 1.3 Climate change 5 1.4 Modelling anthropogenic water use 5 1.5 The Pearl River Basin 7 1.6 Research objectives and questions 10 Chapter 2 15 Abstract 15 2.1 Introduction 16 2.2 Materials and methods 18 2.3 Results 26 2.4 Discussion 35 2.5 Conclusion 39 Chapter 3 43 Abstract 43 3.1 Introduction 44 3.2 Materials and method 46 3.3 Results 52 3.4 Discussion 55 3.5 Conclusion 58 Chapter 4 63 Abstract 63 4.1 Introduction 64 4.2 Methodology 67 4.3 Results 73 4.4 Discussion 78 4.5 Conclusion 82 Chapter 5 87 Abstract 87 5.1 Introduction 88 5.2 Methodology 90 5.3 Results 96 5.4 Discussion 106 5.5 Conclusion 109 Chapter 6 113 6.1 Introduction 113 6.2 Water use of a heavily urbanized delta region 115 6.3 Impact of water use on salt intrusion 117 6.4 Building regional water use scenarios 118 6.5 Future water conflicts, their effect on economic development, and possible alleviation strategies 119 6.6 Reflection on strengths and limitation of the study’s methodology 121 6.7 Synthesis: impact of the present study to achieve a sustainable future for the Pearl River Basin 123 6.8 Scientific contribution to sustainable water resource management and socio-economic scenario analysis 126 6.9 Outlook and recommendations for future research 129 Appendix A 133 Appendix B 135 Appendix C 135 Appendix D 139 Appendix E 143 Appendix F 145 Appendix G 151 Reference 155 Summary 169 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Fresh water resources Freshwater is the most crucial element for life. But the total renewable water resource, i.e. the maximum theoretical amount of water available, is limited at around 54000 billion m3, or at present global population numbers less than 8000m3 per person for all the activities (GEO Data Portal 2010). Moreover, this water does not remain constant, but continuously transfer through different stocks (lakes, soil, atmosphere, biomass, reservoirs etc.) and fluxes (river, rainfall, evapotranspiration, urban drainage etc.) within the hydrological cycle over various spatial and temporal scales. Some climates exhibit fairly even distributions of rainfall, e.g. the wet tropics and wet temperate climates, while in other climates it comes very uneven, e.g. in strongly monsoonal, Mediterranean or semi-arid climates. Consequently, the already limited fresh water resource is not available at the time and place where the water demand is. When water fluxes concentrate, or diminish at one place during a certain period, e.g. heavy rainfall, it could become a disaster. Thus, the actual distribution of water availability can be highly uneven and poses severe risks to human activities under temporary intensive rainfall or drought. 1.2 Anthropogenic water use As the most crucial element for any human developments, the human body needs around 2.5 litres intake per day to maintain proper functions (Whitney and Rolfes 2016). Food production, energy generation, industrial manufacture and processing etc. are all heavily dependent on water resources. Anthropogenic water use has more than doubled during the past few decades (Yoshihide et al. 2013). During the period 1996-2005, it took 1385 m3 fresh water per year on average to cover one person’s demand of foods, goods and domestic uses (Hoekstra and Mekonnen 2012). That is a revision from Hoekstra and Chapagain (2007), when the number was only 1240 m3 per year for the period 1997-2001. Not only the per capita water use increases, population growth is also a fundamental driving force causing rising water demands. During the period from 2001-2005, the world population grew by more than 5% (United Nations 2017). 3 Introduction When population grows, all the demands for foods, goods, energy, and services all increase, which leads to higher demand for water resources. Urbanization, from many perspectives, is a positive process (Brand 2009). However, growing urban population also increases average prosperous and changes lifestyles. Consequently, not only the demands of energy, commodities and services rise, but also the consumption patterns change (FAOSTAT 2011), and so does the water demand (Lahart et al. 2008, Tietenberg 2003). For instance, the world average daily protein supply increased substantially from 61.40 g/capita in 1960s to 77.10 g/capita along with the population growth (FAOSTAT 2011). Increase in high (animal) protein consumption means higher feeds and fodder demands, i.e. water-intensive production, and higher water demand. Due to the changing lifestyle, global water use has grown twice the rate of population growth since 1900 (FAO 2010). It is estimated that world population will increase some 30% by the middle of this century, and reaches 9.3 billion (United Nations 2011). Fulfilling and sustaining water consumption is thus a crucial concern to achieve sustainable development. Figure 1-1 illustrates the balance between fresh water resources and water uses in a river basin system, explicitly including an intra-basin competition over water resources between upstream and downstream. For a region in the middle or lower reaches of a river basin, the available water originates from direct precipitation, groundwater, and discharge from the upstream part of the basin.

Load more